Verbing Weirds Language only if you're expecting it to work in a simple way. This is a special case of the more general truth that Language Weirds.

Only when a republic's life is in danger should a man uphold his government when it is in the wrong. There is no other time.

The church says Earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence in a shadow than the church.

If we can't find Heaven, there are always bluejays.

Friday, January 21, 2011

"Consider"?

Okay, you know I'm not much of a prescriptivist when it comes to English style. But the nuts and bolts of grammar? Yes, it is possible to get those wrong.

But please don't really on a grammar checker for your pointers.

Take this sentence:

Mr X. proved himself able to handle a variety of topics at ILR Level 3.

The grammar checker would like me to get rid of himself and replace it with ... he. WTF? Oh, okay. If I do that, it immediately tells me that I should use him instead. Why can't it just say that in the first place? But I digress...

In its "explanation" it says

Use pronouns ending in "self" in conjunction with a noun, as in "Andrew himself" or when the pronoun refers back to the subject, as in "I hit myself." Use "own" in conjunction with a pronoun only when referring back to the subject.

Okay. Fine. (Well, except for the missing comma after "Andrew himself".) All well and good. (Of course, in my sentence "himself" does refer back to the subject.) But then it gives these two examples.

Instead of: They heard herself on the radio.Consider: They heard her on the radio.

Instead of: John watched her own meal get cold.Consider: John watched her meal get cold.

Neither of those seems anything that anyone would write (well, possibly in some dialects with a capital H for that first one). And neither is anything like mine. Why doesn't it try and show the difference between

They heard themselves on the radio.They heard them on the radio.

John watched his own meal get cold.John watched his meal get cold.

Sure, it'd need a few more words, but that's the kind of advice people need. Though, come to think of it, it didn't ask me if "Mr X. proved him able to handle a variety of topics" was perhaps incorrect. Maybe it doesn't know.

Maybe it just has a simple prompt triggered by the appearance of the -self morpheme?

Pfft. Of course that's all it has. That's why you shouldn't pay it much (if indeed) any mind.

4 Comments:

It also doesn't suggest the obvious solution (were one needed, which 'tain't) of leaving out the pronoun entirely: "Mr X. proved able to handle a variety of topics...."[1]

I wonder if it'd argue that that's incorrect (it's not).

As we all know, the most common misuse of reflexive pronouns is in combinations, where people aren't sure whether it should be "Bob and I" or "Bob and me", and rather than gambling on the 50% odds of picking one, they go for the 100% incorrect "Bob and myself".

——————[1] On thinking about it more, I think there's a difference in nuance. "He proved able" can be passive, where he just did his work, and, gee, it turned out that he was good at it after all. "He proved himself able" has at least some sense of his actively proving himself, perhaps knowing that he needed to. I think the two can mostly be used interchangeably, but there's just the smallest difference. Maybe.

I will surely not be taking any grammar advice from the person and/or computer which suggests replacing “John watched her own meal get cold” with “John watched her meal get cold.”

The first sentence, however incorrect it may be, tells the reader whom the meal belongs to, while the second sentence only confuses the reader as to which meal is getting cold. John is a HIM, not a HER.

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About Me

I teach Russian and Ukrainian, and some basic English. I dabble in Gaelic and Welsh. I'm am amateur photographer and I've recently started birding (in a small way). I'm a Progressive, and a Freethinker, and I know Evolution is a fact - that's FCD, Friend of Charles Darwin (look down the sidebar). I read a lot, and follow women's college basketball. Also I love astronomy, though I'm a rank amateur at it. Most of all, I like living in the reality-based community... One more thing: this blog and the opinions on it are mine, and don't represent any institution or employer... probably very much so don't.

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You cannot leave. You cannot drop the armor now. Why? Because you are needed, more than ever. You are mandatory to keep the energy flowing, the karmic vibrator buzzing, to keep the progressive and lucid half of the nation breathing and healthy and awake and ever reaching out to the half that's wallowing in fear and violence and homophobia and sexual dread, hoping to find harmony instead of cacophony, common ground instead of civil war, some sort of a shared love of a country so messy and internationally disrespected and openly confused its own president can't even speak the language.

After all, you don't hand over all your children the first time the flying monkeys bang on your door...

It's far from over. The tunnel is just a little darker -- and longer -- than we imagined.
Mark Morford